A very small performance based upon the BIG task of predicting the future and climate change

Make a specific prediction for yourself for one month’s time.  It should be on something important within your daily lived experience, and preferably something contingent upon outside influences, but not necessarily. Actually, it could equally be about your making of a cup of tea at a certain date or time. In fact, that would be quite nice.

Write this prediction into http://www.futureme.org and choose the date when you want to receive it. It will be emailed to your inbox at your chosen date and time in the future. Try to do a prognosis as a daily exercise of sorts, or at least at regular intervals. See how each prognosis affects you or the way you do things, or not.   Keep a record of how you felt and what you were doing when the prediction came through.

Make a note to compare the two sets of texts, before and after, whilst considering change.

COP 15 Remote Participation at the Forum Centre in Copenhagen. Photo: Alex Eisenberg

MARY PATERSON:

‘Crisis in Copenhagen – the pressure is building’ says an email in my inbox, from Avaaz, the international activists’ organization.  They want me to sign a petition to encourage the delegates at COP15 to secure a 2 C deal.  A 2 C deal is one that makes the whole world work together to stop the Earth’s temperature rising a further two degrees.  On Wednesday I heard someone say that people at the Bella Centre, where the COP15 talks are taking place, were resigned to a 4 C deal as the best they could hope for.  I overheard this comment at Klima Forum, the ‘people’s’ climate conference, organized by the Danish Government in a leisure complex in the centre of town.  Klima Forum is the place where everyone who has not been accredited for access to the Bella Centre comes to meet.  There are talks and discussions taking place here every day, an art exhibition, some relatively cheap food.  Sometimes I wonder if Klima Forum is just the Danish Government’s way of keeping all the NGOs and the activists busy, so they don’t make trouble.  Today it is too cold to make trouble anyway – the snowstorm last night has laid a thick white blanket over the city, and left a biting chill in the air – but yesterday, at 8am at Taarnby train station, a few hundred activists were looking for trouble.  They were gathered for the legal march to the Bella Centre, to protest against the ticketing system that has denied access to 15,000 accredited delegates.  The previous day, the American activist Naomi Klein stood up in the main hall at Klima Forum and urged everyone to join the march.  The 15,000 excluded delegates, she said, included representatives from NGOs from developing countries, some of whom had only flown out for the second week of talks, in order to save money.  They have flown out, she said, only to find that they cannot take part.

I had already picked up a leaflet about the protest, and hearing Naomi Klein talk made me determined that it participation was the right thing to do.  But when I arrived at Taarnby station the following morning, wearing an extra pair of socks and two pairs of gloves to guard against the cold, I felt out of place.  Other people were holding banners about Tar Sands in Canada and about relocalizing food production.  I trusted the banners, but I wasn’t informed enough to march in their name.  I felt like I had done earlier in the week, when a woman from Greenpeace asked me to vote in the Angry Mermaid Awards, a satirical prize for the least helpful lobbyist at COP15.  The woman handed me a list of international corporations that lobby governments to act in ways that exacerbate climate problems.  I said I would do some research before I cast my vote.  The representative from Greenpeace looked concerned, and said I must vote now, because the polls were about to close.  So I apologised, and she looked disappointed, and then she left.

At the protest, I stood around for a while in silence.  I didn’t join in when someone started a chant: What do we want?  Climate Action! When do we want it?  Now! I wanted to march with the 15,000 excluded delegates, but this group of young people seemed to be social protestors, willing to march anywhere, for anything.  The demonstration was planned to culminate in a ‘popular assembly’, a real and symbolic act to reverse the hierarchy of political power.  The marchers from outside the Bella Centre would be met by supportive delegates from inside, and together the two groups would overthrow conference security, disrupt the politics of exclusion and impose a true mandate for discussion.  At Taarnby, a string of four of five policemen moved silently past, and the crowd roared in protest.  I didn’t recognise myself in the emotions of any of the activists and wondered what kind of mandate this would be.  It reminded me of watching an England football match in a pub.  I got embarrassed when England scored a goal because I didn’t know how to join in with the shrieks and whoops of spontaneous sociability.

Photo: Alex Eisenberg

Leaving Taarnby, I sat on a quiet commuter train and glided back into the city.  This time, the train route did not take us past the Bella Centre, like it had on the way there.  Earlier, I had passed the site of the official talks while the sun was still rising in the grey blue sky.  It is a faceless place, like an aircraft hanger or a football stadium – a structure with no windows, and a lot of security.  Out the back, there is a model of the globe.  It was being watched by two officials in high visibility vests, who were not quite as tall as the globe itself.  The globe was lit up, its seas glowing blue and its land glowing green.  The metro train seemed to slow down as we went past, but there was nothing much to see.  A queue of people.  A building without any windows.  An industrial space, sightless and slippery, outside which the rest of the world slides by.

Instances of non-participation, December 2009

1. Taarnby Train Station, 8.30am, Wednesday 16^th December [not taking part in the protest for the popular assembly at COP15]
2. Klima Forum, 4.45pm, Monday 13^th December [not voting in the Angry Mermaid awards]
3. Metro train near the Bella Centre, 8.15am, Wednesday 16^th December [not entering the Bella Centre]
4. Forchsammer Vej 11, 3.00pm – 6.00pm, Thursday 17^th December [not going to a talk at Klima Forum in which world leaders were invited to answer the question, ‘Did we get the deal we came for?’]
5. London (various), Sunday 6^th December – Friday 11^th December, inclusive [not travelling to Copenhagen for the start of COP15, New Life Copenhagen, and Question Time]
6. Gmail inbox, daily [not signing petitions sent to me by Ricken Patel at Avaaz.org

On the 11^th December, a man stood at the front of the Meshwork hall at Klima Forum, the people’s summit as part of COP15, and talked about talking climate change.  I was excited to find this being discussed and joined the back of the assembled audience. In keeping with the Meshworks inclusive, open space methodology, the man was talking about the hierarchies of coming to, or talking about, Climate Change. In particular, he was advocating a participatory- ergo democratic and ethical – space for the public’s collective and individual utterances on climate change in proximity to the official UN negotiations at the Bella Centre. This particular space did not involve ‘experts’ at the front of a (passive) audience, telling them what to think. The man said all this to us whilst gesturing at a complex network diagram with an infra-red pointer. He sometimes had his back to us.

And I silently took notes.

The phrase ‘THE CHALLENGE IS NOT ‘X’ THE CHALLENGE IS ‘X’!’ came up a lot:

I have since carried the refrain around with me, adopting it to situations I encounter during my time in Copenhagen.

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT EXPERTS
THE CHALENGE IS FRONTALITY

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT WOMEN
THE CHALLENGE IS MEN

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT FOOD
THE CHALLENGE IS WASTE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT RECYCLING
THE CHALLENGE IS THE MESS AND THE SMELL, AND THE FACT THAT THE RECYCLING BIN IS BEHIND THE SOFA

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT BLAH BLAH BLAH
THE CHALLENGE IS BLAH BLAH BLAH

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT THE CHALLENGE
THE CHALLENGE IS [                                  ]

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT CLIMATE
THE CHALLENGE IS SYSTEM

THE CAHLLENGE IS NOT BIG
THE CHALLENGE IS SMALL

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT TECHNOLOGY
THE CHALLENGE IS COLLABORATION

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT TALK
THE CHALLENGE IS SILENCE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT HESITATION
THE CHALLENGE IS CONFIDENCE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT ACTION
THE CHALLENGE IS ACTIVISTS

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT DEBATE
THE CHALLENGE IS DEBATABLE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT WRITING
THE CHALLENGE IS NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT MAKING YOUR NAME AS BIG AS EVERYBODY ELSE’S ON THE WORD CLOUD AT THE SIDE OF THIS POST
THE CHALLENGE IS QUALITY

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT QUESTIONTIME
THE CHALLENGE IS THE QUESTIONS

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT GREEN
THE CHALLENGE IS GREED

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT COST
THE CHALLENGE IS VALUE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT CHALLENGE
THE CHALLENGE IS EGNELLAHC

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT ME
THE CHALLENGE IS NOT ME

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT BEING CERTAIN HOW THIS IS TALKING CLIMATE CHANGE
THE CHALLENGE IS BEING CERTAIN HOW THIS IS TALKING CLIMATE CHANGE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT
THE CHALLENGE IS

On 12/12/09 I had forty five minutes to wait in Copenhagen airport. I wrote:

Early on – both with Question Time and with New Life Copenhagen – the phrase “social sculpture” was used. We placed it on one of our interview cards, but all found it too confusing to actually ask anyone.

At the first of our daily summits – when words and questions can be re-placed and re-written – “social sculpture” became “solidarity” – a phrase used by one interviewee – and through discussion this was then edited further to become “solid.” Or as I prefer to write it:

Social Sculpture

Solidarity

Solid

But the phrase Social Sculpture still has some currency for me in how I think about Question Time. Waiting at the airport 12/12/09 I thought I would make some notes to try an improvise a definition and a use. A definition:

Social Sculpture is the application of sculpture derived process(es) to broader processes by which societies are created, maintained and transformed.

Different Kinds:

(1)The working with/ shaping of a fixed amount of material to find a form within/ out of.

(2)The combination of a potentially infinite amount of material to create a (new) form.

(3)The translation into social forms of broader (gestural) notions of sculptural processes – shaping, moulding, carving – both as actual gestures and as (immaterial) metaphors.

In all of these instances social sculpture = seeing materials as active and continuous and therefore changing

The Practice of Social Sculpture

The practice of social sculpture can be language based and/or non-verbal.

Social Sculpture seeks to find a balance between verbal and non-verbal means within an expanded economy of exchange. Maybe any resultant social formation is proposing how these two forms of communication can relate.

CASE STUDY: I associate the invention of the term with Joseph Beuys. Beuys was very verbal but also developed an alternative (silent) economy of fat, honey and iron. For Beuys the two were connected by charisma.

The reason we removed “Social Sculpture” from our cards was that it seemed to lack any currency outside of an art context. It is a phrase adrift. Amongst the Question Time group, who had all heard and used the phrase, it had different histories and etymologies, including an association with art as non-spectacle and links to relational aesthetics.

There are several ways of responding to “social sculpture”:

1.Reject the phrase.

2.Embrace the phrase.

3.Make it common currency.

I think (1) would necessitate an immersion in physical processes of moulding, sculpting, carving and shaping towards the emergence of new words and phrases that do figure in a common currency.

I think (2) involves an embrace of the state of exception. “Social sculpture” as a private language, unsaid, but whose implications and meanings are unfolded, almost non-identified by myself,  in my work.

I think (3) involves billboards, television adverts, the authorship of successful pop songs, or maybe a quieter insertion of “social sculpture” into a whole range of social situations.

Yesterday, in one interview, somebody responded to “solid” through talking about “solidarity.” I wonder if “social sculpture” might also re-enter our discussions as a way of understanding how this project is unfolding.

Certainly, the interviews are scripted and shaped in a very particular way by our cards. I am unsure how that shaping/ sculpting relates to a sense of the “social.”

Despite these notes I am not yet able to put “social” and “sculpture” together in a way that constructs.

Barack Obama is arriving tomorrow.

RACHEL LOIS CLAPHAM:

SOME BIG SHORT WORDS FROM THE COP15 MARCH, OFTEN GROUPED IN SETS OF THREE

AND AMIDST ALL THIS BIGNESS, SOME FOUND TEXT FROM THE FLOOR

MARY PATERSON: The newspapers and news channels are full of emotion about COP15. On Monday, 56 newspapers around the world shared an editorial which read: ‘Fourteen days to seal history’s judgement on this generation.’ The Guardian has created a Flickr group to capture its readers’ experiences, and a live blog. Yesterday Sky News halted its ticker tape of breaking stories for a second, its presenters stared glassy eyed and lost into their teleprompters, until they received the announcement that Obama would be attending the end of the conference. This means, they said in emphatic and long drawn out tones, that he might sign a deal.

A Deal.

Connie Heddegaard, the President of COP15, is hopeful about the deal that could take place. She said there is an unprecedented political will to reach not just an agreement, but an ‘ambitious agreement’. Meanwhile, the most optimistic headline I read this morning comes from The Guardian: ‘Hopes of a deal remain high as climate talks open.’ The implication is that these hopes will soon dwindle. The Daily Telegraph counters with, ‘Sceptics may resort to illegal attacks to stop climate change deal.’ The Independent dwells on Naomi Klein’s soundbite about ‘the capitalisation of hope.’ The activist is referring to the Siemens and Coca Cola logos brandished on the publicity for cultural events that support the conference. The article does not explain why capitalist corporations should be against a climate change deal or, conversely, why they should be pro- the destruction of the world.

The emotional tenor is so strong, that actual facts and figures are hard to find. While The Independent says that the MET Office has released information on world temperatures, for example, it doesn’t give any indication of what that information actually contains. Facts are restricted to the strategic movements of individuals, like the American President Barack Obama, whose support is greeted like a talisman for success. Or, more prosaically, the party political angling of the two main parties in the UK, each leader trying to grab the headlines in a country only a few months away from an election.

Instead, all the news reports refer to something intangible carried out on a massive scale – the judgement of history, perhaps, or the hopes of an unidentifiable mass of individuals. These are not just hopes that a deal will be made, but that a deal will be reasonable, that it will be good enough. This deal – this ideal – will of course be based in facts and figures, but it will mean a lot more. The real hope is that the world’s leaders can create a plan of action that extends beyond national interests. When the stakes are so high, the rules of the game also extend to new dimensions. Can the entire world fight together for a global cause?

And of course the conference does not get a mention in some newspapers, like The Daily Mail or The Sun. Elsewhere, away from Copenhagen, life ticks on as normal. Buses are stuck in traffic. It rains. The view across the Thames from the Southbank Centre on a weekday night is quiet and undisturbed. People are Christmas shopping.

This afternoon, The Guardian leaked a document that it claims gives details of how the richer nations plan to take advantage of the poorer ones. It is illustrated with a picture of a conference room, empty except for the delegate from Haiti, who holds her head in her hands. The picture is not a fact, of course – the Haitian delegate cannot have been alone in a conference room when she heard of the leak; she could have held that pose for less than a second; perhaps she was just tired. But on a day when headlines are also made by ex-X Factor contestants and I’m a Celebrity … outcasts, it’s the next twist in the live action from COP 15: The Soap Opera.

Photo:Greenpeace/Åslund

DAVID BERRIDGE: Copenhagen or Hopenhagen; images of an elderly Barack Obama and Gordon Brown saying “We could have stopped catastrophic climate change… We did NOTHING”; special lines for COP15 delegates at passport control. Arriving in Copenhagen and exploring, Alex and I bought pizza and were asked straight away if we were here for the climate change conference. Were we representatives of the British government, said the proprietor rolling pizza dough. Or were we protestors?

A pair of possible identities to choose between and we hesitated before saying “Er…we’re artists” which seemed to cause some confusion, and some urgent translation and word checking in the kitchen. In Frederiksberg we went into the Zusammen Red Cross-run cafe. We chatted about our project, and about New Life Copenhagen. This time talking about it as an art project generated a sense of interest: “ Oh, so you’re not journalists then.” No, we’re not journalists, but quite what the difference is is also something we want to explore.

Our project starts today: 1000 interviews for Copenhagen. In between all the practical things of being in a new place – finding the flat, food, working out how the public transport works – I’ve been looking back at the Question Time project description. It’s a press release, a summary, but it’s also a minute from a day spent in London at Mary’s flat thinking through what the four of us might do here, and a score that we will perform again and again and possibly change over the next two weeks:

Question Time is a series of 1000 interviews, conducted throughout Copenhagen during the UN COP15 conference, towards an alternate statement of the way forward on Climate Change. In a context of inter-governmental debate and negotiation, Question Time explores an alternative approach to climate change based on anecdote neurotic behaviors, misunderstandings, and gossip.

Curious to now think through these terms in Copenhagen itself, and the unusual relations of local and global that COP15 sets up. A particular city transformed by a global event; a natural phenomenon encountering the micro- weather systems of diplomacy. To talk of gossip or neurotic behaviors is to try and map these debates as they interact with our everyday emotional landscapes, to find out how we relate to climate change across our personal and professional lives.

Mary Paterson will be in London for the first week of the project. In many ways, I imagine Mary has more access to how COP15 is being broadcast and understood internationally than we do here. In Copenhagen itself there’s more the physical landscape thrown up by such events: the welcoming stalls at the airport; the COP15 bus taking its long, slow, free route through the city; tonight’s launch event for Hopenhagen.

Mary has proposed the following score to get us started. We ask each of our interviewees the following questions. In the questions themselves – and in the manner of asking and answering – we’ll be testing those identities: journalist, diplomat, artist? What’s the difference?

1. Am I making you nervous?
2. What does it feel like to be part of a social sculpture?
3. Using 5 words, can you describe what COP15 means to you?
4. What do you think this place [i.e. the room, café, street where the interview is taking place] will be like in 50 years’ time? In 150 years’ time? In 1,000 years’ time?
5. What do you feel nostalgic about?
6. What have you learnt today?
7. Where were you and what were you doing 10 days ago?
8. Would you describe yourself as ‘a political animal.’
9. How old are you, and where are you from?
10.Who are you here with, and why?